Day 73: Destruction Prevents Healing:
There is no healing for your wound; you injury is fatal. All who hear of your destruction will clap their hands for joy. Where can anyone be found who has not suffered from your continual cruelty?" —Nahum 3:19
Today's anecdote is rather depressing, but realistic. Anderson uses the story of Ryder, a drug dealer turned murderer to essentially teach us the importance of repentance. Though he doesn't speak specifically about repentance, he suggests that we should, unlike Ryder, "live [our lives] so that [our] wounds will be healed and [our] neighbors will grieve when it's [our] time to go." He describes Ryder as the "product of years of poor choices, drug use, violence, and [lastly] murder," who ended up dying from the injuries he received in a car accident that took place during a high speed police chase. Sadly, when he passed his "remains were quietly transported back to where he'd come from, and no one seemed to notice he was gone."
I suppose it is important to remember that anyone of us could be a Ryder, under the "right" circumstances. As I was reading I was thinking about a member of my family who has been in prison several times for drugs, and is now there again because of child molestation. I love this person and I am sure Ryder had people who loved him too, but our love is often not enough to help people break free of their inner demons. "There is no healing" at least not lasting healing, without repentance.
There has to be a deep sorrow and regret for wrongdoings and a change of heart, a desire to do what is good. Some people just never get there.
I also think it is important, for me especially, to remember that I am no better than anyone else. It's easy to read a story like the one about Ryder and think, "well at least I am not that bad." Honestly, wrong is wrong and bad is bad. Some sins may be more severe, but all lead to the same penalty. I don't particularly like that word "penalty," but there it is. Without Jesus, we would all suffer the penalty of our sins regardless of the degree of their severity. As unfortunate as that may seem, it is the way it is. No one likes to think of God as the God of judgement (I certainly don't), but in actuality, it is as Rob Bell says in Love Wins, "We crave judgement, we long for it, we thirst for it. Bring it, unleash it..." He says, "Often we can think of little else. Every oil spill, every report of another woman sexually assaulted, every news report that another political leader has silenced the opposition through torture, imprisonment, or execution, every time we see someone stepped on by an institution or corporation more interested in profit than people, every time we stumble upon one more instance of the human heart gone wrong, we shake our fist and cry out, 'Will somebody please do something about this?'"
It's hard to argue against the truth of that. We have no trouble thinking of God as the God of judgement in those cases, but when the finger is pointed at ourselves, it's then that we'd like to sing a different tune. We need Jesus because we can never be perfect. We will always miss the mark (sin). As I have been writing this, I have vacillated between feeling agitated and irritable about our basic nature and again questioning why God created us to be so ridiculous, to feeling relieved and grateful that he has given us the freedom to choose and provided a way for us to overcome. Jesus says in John 16:33 that "In this world you will have trouble [that which we bring upon ourselves and that which is done to us]." But take heart! I have overcome the world."
All we have to do is trust in Him.
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